1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video telecommunication system provided with a plurality of cameras installed at a transmission side, at least one monitor provided at a reception side, and a network for transferring the video information data from the cameras to the monitor and also relates to a video transmission apparatus and a video reception apparatus used for such a video telecommunication system.
Wide use is now becoming made of the above video telecommunication systems for example for remote monitoring of traffic conditions at multiple locations of highways and remote monitoring of the environment at multiple locations near dams and their reservoirs. The advances made in large-capacity data transmission technology using dedicated optical fibers has contributed much to this.
2. Description of the Related Art
In such a video telecommunication system, when viewing a video from a transmission side camera (video camera) displayed at the output part of a video receiver apparatus provided in for example a supervisory center, that is, the above monitor, the most important information together with the video information is the information on the name of the location, that is, the place the camera is now shooting. In the case of the example of monitoring the area around a dam and its reservoir, specific examples of the information on the place names are a “Bridge A”, “Road B”, “River C”, “valley D”, “Mountain E”, etc.
The information on such place names conventionally is recorded by an operator going out to the video transmission apparatus (field) working with the cameras.
When it was necessary to change a once recorded place name or when it is learned that there was an error in a once recorded place name and it has to be corrected, in the past an operator went out to the video transmission apparatus to make the change or correction.
Further, in the related art, the working conditions of the cameras placed in the field were monitored using a dedicated monitoring terminal provided in the supervisory center.
Summarizing the problems to be solved by the invention, in the above video telecommunication system of the related art, a large number of steps were involved in recording the above place name information. Therefore, there was the problem that the larger the number of places covered or the further away the places, the huger the number of steps required for recording the place names.
Further, there was the problem that when a need arose for changing or correcting a place name, the operation for that purpose ended up requiring a long time. Therefore, the interruption until the video from the cameras could be monitored normally once again ended up becoming longer.
Still further, if viewing the monitoring of the working conditions of the cameras, since the dedicated monitoring terminal and monitor were provided separately, there was a lack of full coordination between the two and consequently there was the problem that the inspection at the camera installation side (transmission side) could not be performed efficiently.